The flat rank of a totally disconnected locally compact group G, denoted flat-rk(G), is an invariant of the topological group structure of G. It is defined thanks to a natural distance on the space of compact open subgroups of G. For a topological Kac-Moody group G with Weyl group W, we derive the inequalities: alg-rk(W)\le flat-rk(G)\le rk(|W|\_0). Here, alg-rk(W) is the maximal $\mathbb{Z}$-rank of abelian subgroups of W, and rk(|W|\_0) is the maximal dimension of isometrically embedded flats in the CAT0-realization |W|\_0. We can prove these inequalities under weaker assumptions. We also show that for any integer n \geq 1 there is a topologically simple, compactly generated, locally compact, totally disconnected group G, with flat-rk(G)=n and which is not linear.
The paper is intended to be a survey on some topics within the framework of automorphisms of a relatively free groups of infinite rank. We discuss such properties as tameness, primitivity, small index, Bergman property, and so on.
If H is a flat group of automorphisms of finite rank n of a totally disconnected, locally compact group G, then each orbit of H in the metric space B(G) of compact, open subgroups of G is quasi-isometric to n-dimensional euclidean space. In this note we prove the following partial converse: Assume that G is a totally disconnected, locally compact group such that B(G) is a proper metric space and let H be a group of automorphisms of G such that some (equivalently every) orbit of H in B(G) is quasi-isometric to n-dimensional euclidean space, then H has a finite index subgroup which is flat of ra…
We show that in the free group of rank 3, given an arbitrary number of automorphisms, the intersection of their fixed subgroups is equal to the fixed subgroup of some other single automorphism.
The JSJ decomposition encodes the automorphisms and the virtually cyclic splittings of a hyperbolic group. For general finitely presented groups, the JSJ decomposition encodes only their splittings. In this sequence of papers we study the automorphisms of a hierarchically hyperbolic group that satisfies some weak acylindricity conditions. To study these automorphisms we construct an object that can be viewed as a higher rank JSJ decomposition. In the first paper we demonstrate our construction in the case of a right angled Artin group. For studying automorphisms of a general HHG we construct w…
We improve a result of Prokhorov and Shramov on the rank of finite $p$-subgroups of the birational automorphism group of a rationally connected variety. Known examples show that they are sharp in many cases.
We classify a large class of small groups of finite Morley rank: $N_\circ^\circ$-groups which are the infinite analogues of Thompson's $N$-groups. More precisely, we constrain the $2$-structure of groups of finite Morley rank containing a definable, normal, non-soluble, $N_\circ^\circ$-subgroup.
Let $ϕ$ be an automorphism of a free group $F_n$ of rank $n$, and let $M_ϕ=F_n \rtimes_ϕ \mathbb{Z}$ be the corresponding mapping torus of $ϕ$. We study the group $Out(M_ϕ)$ under certain technical conditions on $ϕ$. Moreover, in the case of rank 2, we classify the cases when this group is finite or virtually cyclic, depending on the conjugacy class of the image of $ϕ$ in $GL_2(\mathbb{Z})$.
We prove that the automorphism group of the braid group on four strands acts faithfully and geometrically on a CAT(0) 2-complex. This implies that the automorphism group of the free group of rank two acts faithfully and geometrically on a CAT(0) 2-complex, in contrast to the situation for rank three and above.
We offer a criterion for showing that the automorphism group of an ultrahomogeneous structure is topologically 2-generated and even has a cyclically dense conjugacy class. We then show how finite topological rank of the automorphism group of an $ω$-categorical structure can go down to reducts. Together, those results prove that a large number of $ω$-categorical structures that appear in the literature have an automorphism group of finite topological rank. In fact, we are not aware of any $ω$-categorical structure to which they do not apply (assuming the automorphism group has no compact quotie…
A survey article that presents some recent algebraic and model-theoretic results on the automorphism groups of relatively free groups of infinite rank. The topics include topological aspects, generating sets, descripition of automorpisms and expressive power of the first-order theories.
In positive characteristic, algebraic curves can have many more automorphisms than expected from the classical Hurwitz's bound. There even exist algebraic curves of arbitrary high genus g with more than 16g^4 automorphisms. It has been observed on many occasions that the most anomalous examples invariably have zero p-rank. In this paper, the K-automorphism group Aut(X) of a zero 2-rank algebraic curve X defined over an algebraically closed field K of characteristic 2 is investigated. The main result is that if the curve has genus g greater than or equal to 2, and |Aut(X)|>24g^2, then Aut(X) ha…
We construct an example of an IA-automorphism of the free metabelian group of rank $n\geq 3$ without nontrivial fixed points. That gives a negative answer to the question raised by Shpilrain. By a result of Bachmuth \cite{Ba1}, such an automorphism does not exist if the rank is equal to 2.
It is well known that every finite subgroup of automorphism group of polynomial algebra of rank 2 over the field of zero characteristic is conjugated with a subgroup of linear automorphisms. We prove that it is not true for an arbitrary torsion subgroup. We construct an example of abelian $p$-group of automorphism of polynomial algebra of rank 2 over the field of complex numbers, which is not conjugated with a subgroup of linear automorphisms.
In this paper we study the structure of the rational cohomology groups of the IA-automorphism group $\mathrm{IA}_3$ of a free group of rank three by using combinatorial group theory and representation theory. In particular, we detect non-trivial irreducible component in the second cohomology group of $\mathrm{IA}_3$, which does not contained in the image of the cup product map of the first cohomology groups. We also show that the image of the triple cup product map of the first cohomology groups in the third cohomology group is trivial. As a corollary, we obtain that the fourth term of the low…
For each prime power $q\geq 5$, we construct a rank four chiral polytope that has a group $PSL(3,q)$ as automorphism group and Schläfli type $\{q-1,\frac{2(q-1)}{(3,q-1)},q-1\}$. We also construct rank five polytopes for some values of $q$ and we show that there is no chiral polytope of rank at least six having a group $PSL(3,q)$ or $PSU(3,q)$ as automorphism group.
In this article we show how to calculate the group of automorphisms of flat Kähler manifolds. Moreover we are interested in the problem of classification of such manifolds up to biholomorphism. We consider these problems from two points of view. The first one treats the automorphism group as a subgroup of the group of affine transformations, while in the second one we analyze it using automorphisms of complex tori. This leads us to the analogues of the Bieberbach theorems in the complex case. We end with some examples, which in particular show that in general the finiteness of the automorphism…
Let $Γ_d(q)$ denote the group whose Cayley graph with respect to a particular generating set is the Diestel-Leader graph $DL_d(q)$, as described by Bartholdi, Neuhauser and Woess. We compute both $Aut(Γ_d(q))$ and $Out(Γ_d(q))$ for $d \geq 2$, and apply our results to count twisted conjugacy classes in these groups when $d \geq 3$. Specifically, we show that when $d \geq 3$, the groups $Γ_d(q)$ have property $R_{\infty}$, that is, every automorphism has an infinite number of twisted conjugacy classes. In contrast, when $d=2$ the lamplighter groups $Γ_2(q)=L_q = {\mathbb Z}_q \wr {\mathbb Z}$ h…
In this paper we define a quantity called the rank of an outer automorphism of a free group which is the same as the index introduced in [D. Gaboriau, A. Jaeger, G. Levitt and M. Lustig, `An index for counting fixed points for automorphisms of free groups', Duke Math. J. 93 (1998) 425-452] without the count of fixed points on the boundary. We proceed to analyze outer automorphisms of maximal rank and obtain results analogous to those in [D.J. Collins and E. Turner, `An automorphism of a free group of finite rank with maximal rank fixed point subgroup fixes a primitive element', J. Pure and App…
We prove that, for any positive integer $c$, the quotient group $γ_{c}(M_{3})/γ_{c+1}(M_{3})$ of the lower central series of the McCool group $M_{3}$ is isomorphic to two copies of the quotient group $γ_{c}(F_{3})/γ_{c+1}(F_{3})$ of the lower central series of a free group $F_{3}$ of rank $3$ as $\mathbb{Z}$-modules. Furthermore, we give a necessary and sufficient condition whether the associated graded Lie algebra ${\rm gr}(M_{3})$ of $M_3$ is naturally embedded into the Johnson Lie algebra ${\cal L}({\rm IA}(F_{3}))$ of the IA-automorphisms of $F_{3}$.
Using the notion of a strongly regular hyperbolic automorphism of a locally finite Euclidean building, we prove that any (not necessarily discrete) closed, co-compact subgroup of the type-preserving automorphisms group of a locally finite general non-spherical building contains a compact-by-Z^d subgroup, where d is the dimension of a maximal flat.
The minimal degree of a permutation group $G$ is the minimum number of points not fixed by non-identity elements of $G$. Lower bounds on the minimal degree have strong structural consequences on $G$. Babai conjectured that if a primitive coherent configuration with $n$ vertices is not a Cameron scheme, then its automorphism group has minimal degree $\geq cn$ for some constant $c>0$. In 2014, Babai proved the desired lower bound on the minimal degree of the automorphism groups of strongly regular graphs, thus confirming the conjecture for primitive coherent configurations of rank 3. In this pap…
Let $F_n$ be a free group of rank $n$. In this paper we discuss three algorithmic problems related to automorphisms of $F_2$. A word $u$ of $F_n$ is called positive if $u$ does not have negative exponents. A word $u$ in $F_n$ is called potentially positive if $ϕ(u)$ is positive for some automorphism $ϕ$ of $F_n$. We prove that there is an algorithm to decide whether or not a given word in $F_2$ is potentially positive, which gives an affirmative solution to problem F34a in [1] for the case of $F_2$. Two elements $u$ and $v$ in $F_n$ are said to be boundedly translation equivalent if the ratio …
It is already known that the automorphism group of a chiral polyhedron is never isomorphic to $PSL(2,q)$ or $PGL(2,q)$ for any prime power $q$. In this paper, we show that $PSL(2,q)$ and $PGL(2,q)$ are never automorphism groups of chiral polytopes of rank at least $5$. Moreover, we show that $PGL(2,q)$ is the automorphism group of at least one chiral polytope of rank $4$ for every $q\geq5$. Finally, we determine for which values of $q$ the group $PSL(2,q)$ is the automorphism group of a chiral polytope of rank $4$, except when $q=p^d\equiv3\pmod{4}$ where $d>1$ is not a prime power, in which c…
We describe, up to degree equal to the rank, the Lie algebra associated with the automorphism group of a free group. We compute in particular the ranks of its homogeneous components, and their structure as modules over the linear group. Along the way, we infirm (but confirm a weaker form of) a conjecture by Andreadakis, and answer a question by Bryant-Gupta-Levin-Mochizuki.
A partial linear space is a pair $(\mathcal{P},\mathcal{L})$ where $\mathcal{P}$ is a non-empty set of points and $\mathcal{L}$ is a collection of subsets of $\mathcal{P}$ called lines such that any two distinct points are contained in at most one line, and every line contains at least two points. A partial linear space is proper when it is not a linear space or a graph. A group of automorphisms $G$ of a proper partial linear space acts transitively on ordered pairs of distinct collinear points and ordered pairs of distinct non-collinear points precisely when $G$ is transitive of rank 3 on poi…
We introduce a new class of automorphisms $φ$ of the non-abelian free group $F_N$ of finite rank $N \geq 2$ which contains all iwips (= fully irreducible automorphisms), but also any automorphism induced by a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism of a surface with arbitrary many boundary components. More generally, there may be subgroups of $F_N$ of rank $\geq 2$ on which $φ$ restricts to the identity. We prove some basic facts about such {\em tree-irreducible} automorphisms, and show that, together with Dehn twist automorphisms, they are the natural basic building blocks from which any automorphism of …
A fully irreducible outer automorphism phi of the free group F_n of rank n has an expansion factor which often differs from the expansion factor of the inverse of phi. Nevertheless, we prove that the ratio between the logarithms of the expansion factors of phi and its inverse is bounded above by a constant depending only on the rank n. We also prove a more general theorem applying to an arbitrary outer automorphism of F_n and its inverse, and their entire spectrum of expansion factors.
We prove that every simplicial automorphism of the free splitting graph of a free group of at least rank 3 is induced by an outer automorphism of the free group.
We prove that, for n=3 and 4, the minimal nonabelian finite factor group of the outer automorphism group Out F_n of a free group of rank n is the linear group PSL_n(Z_2) (conjecturally, this may remain true for arbitrary rank n > 2). We also discuss some computational results on low index subgroups of Aut F_n and Out F_n, for n = 3 and 4, using presentations of these groups.
Let $G$ be a group. The orbits of the natural action of Aut$(G)$ on $G$ are called ``automorphism orbits'' of $G$, and the number of automorphism orbits of $G$ is denoted by $ω(G)$. We prove that if $G$ is a soluble group with finite rank such that $ω(G)< \infty$, then $G$ contains a torsion-free characteristic nilpotent subgroup $K$ such that $G = K \rtimes H$, where $H$ is a finite group. Moreover, we classify the mixed order soluble groups of finite rank such that $ω(G)=3$.
This paper uses the methods from arXiv:0804.1396 to give 'short' presentations for Aut$^+(F_n)$, the special automorphism group of the free group of rank $n$, and Out $^+(F_n)$ the special outer automorphism group of the free group of rank $n$.
We exhibit normal subgroups of a free nilpotent group F of rank two and class three, which have isomorphic finite quotients but are not conjugate under any automorphism of F.
Dyer and Formanek (1976) proved that if N is a free nilpotent group of class two and of finite rank which is not equal to 1, or to 3, then the automorphism group Aut(N) of N is complete. The main result of the present paper states that the automorphism group of any infinitely generated free nilpotent group of class two is also complete.
We show that if a group automorphism of a Cremona group of arbitrary rank is also a homeomorphism with respect to either the Zariski or the Euclidean topology, then it is inner up to a field automorphism of the base-field. Moreover, we show that a similar result holds if we consider groups of polynomial automorphisms of affine spaces instead of Cremona groups.
Using abelian coverings of Salvetti complexes, embeddings of outer automorphism groups of right-angled Artin groups (RAAGs) into outer automorphism groups of their particular characteristic subgroups are constructed. Virtual embeddings of outer automorphism groups of finitely generated groups having the unique root property into outer automorphism groups of their particular subgroups are also given. These results provide us with rich examples of (virtual) embeddings between outer automorphism groups of RAAGs. Finite subgroups of pure (outer) automorphism groups of RAAGs are also investigated. …
In this article, we give a method of calculating the automorphism groups of the vertex operator algebras $V_L^+$ associated with even lattices $L$. For example, by using this method we determine the automorphism groups of $V_L^+$ for even lattices of rank one, two and three, and even unimodular lattices.
Let K be a cyclic Galois extension of degree f over k and T a generator of the Galois group. For any v=(v_1,... , v_m)\in K^m such that v is linearly independent over k, and any 0< d < m the Gabidulin-like code C(v, T , d) is a maximum rank distance code in the space of f times m matrices over k of dimension fd. This construction unifies the ones available in the literature. We characterise the K-linear codes that are Gabidulin-like codes and determine their rank-metric automorphism group.
Considering a particular case of a problem posed by Saharon Shelah, we prove that the automorphism group of an infinitely generated free nilpotent group N first-order interprets the full second-order theory of the set rank(N) in the empty language.
We provide an example in each rank of an ageometric fully irreducible outer automorphism whose ideal Whitehead graph has a cut vertex. Consequently, we show that there exist examples in each rank of Handel-Mosher axis bundles that are not just a single axis, as well as of "nongeneric" behavior in the sense of the "train track directed" random walk of Kapovich-Pfaff. The tools developed here also allow one to construct a whole new array of ideal Whitehead graphs achieved by ageometric fully irreducible outer automorphisms in all ranks.
We characterise the primitive 2-closed groups $G$ of rank at most four that are not the automorphism group of a graph or digraph and show that if the degree is at least 2402 then there are just two infinite families or $G\leqslant \mathrm{A}Γ\mathrm{L}_1(p^d)$, the 1-dimensional affine semilinear group. These are the first known examples of non-regular 2-closed groups that are not the automorphism group of a graph or digraph.
In this paper we prove that every automorphism of (elementary) adjoint Chevalley group with root system of rank $>1$ over a commutative ring (with 1/2 for the systems $A_2$, $F_4$, $B_l$, $C_l$; with 1/2 and 1/3 for the system $G_2$) is standard, i.\,e., it is a composition of ring, inner, central and graph automorphisms.
Consider unbounded reduced Abelian p-groups (p > 2) A and A'. In this paper, we prove that if the automorphism groups Aut A and Aut A' are elementary equivalent then the groups A and A' are equivalent in the second order logic bounded by the final rank of the basic subgroups of A and A'.
